On June 26th, NSLI-Y India summer students in Pune engaged in their first community service project, visiting a nearby Marathi medium school where they met 60 schoolchildren in the eighth grade, many of whom come from a nearby low-income community and are first generation school-goers.
The NSLI-Y students were each placed with a group of four or five students to teach them some English. Within 30 minutes, the hall was full of noise, laughter, playing and games. Some NSLI-Y students read children’s books to their group, while others made up games and drew pictures that they asked their group to label in English. A few of the Indian students taught the students popular Indian games like Longri and Kabadi.
On July 3rd, the NSLI-Y India students had their second school visit with the students of Raja Shri Shivarai Pratishthan Secondary School. NSLI-Y Students again taught English using fun, interactive games and shared about their lives in the United States with pictures and maps. They also learned Marathi and Hindi vocabulary from the eager middle school-aged students.
NSLI-Y scholars will return once a week to teach English, learn Hindi and Marathi, exchange ideas and experience everyday life for an Indian student in Pune. The experience revealed to NSLI-Y scholars that teaching a language can be just as fun, challenging and rewarding as learning one! Students are taking advantage of the opportunities that they have while abroad to act as citizen ambassadors to the people that they live with, meet and serve on a daily basis.